Though a small state of India, Goa can certainly give a tough competition when it comes to music and Goan boys from Fatorda didn’t give up at the national level competition for Hip-hop artistes. The rappers and musicians recently participated in the 50 Hour Music Challenge that comes with a set of rules that challenges the artistes to work on a tight schedule of exactly 50 hours.
The group, Killoshi Clan, comprising of Wolf Grey Jordan (Marcus Tavares), MayR (Mayur Taniwade), E-dummy (Rohit Waghela), Squishy Stone (Jovin D’Costa) and female vocalist, Elaine Fernandes worked together to create the song, ‘Aaj Ek Din’ that beat all the other contestants in the Hip-hop genre winning the gold track of the year.
Squishy Stone is a known name in the music industry and has been the man behind songs like ‘Controversy,’ ‘Smooth,’ ‘Get over you,’ ‘Troublesome,’ ‘Gangsings’ and many more. He explains the rules of the competition, “The themes for 50 Hour Music Challenge by Indian Film Project (IFP) was to create a song about giving in to your desire at the moment without worrying about any consequences. The song had to be energetic and physical action-oriented. There had to be humour in the song as a compulsory element had to be completed within 50 hours.”
There were around 3500 participants in the hip-hop category itself and the group were first selected in the top 10 nominees and were then called to Mehboob Studios, Bandra for the award ceremony where they received the award for the gold track of the year in hip hop.
Though the young boys have roots in Fatorda, the real challenge was to get them all together to create the song. “MayR works in Pune and I was in Mumbai and it was chaotic to actually coordinate. E-dummy was also having some rituals those days regarding his father's death and Wolf grey Jordan was extremely ill and was diagnosed with dengue but somehow we pulled it off and everyone put in their 100 percent and we got the song done within the given time and won Gold track of the year. We focused on keeping the basics right and as street as we could, not trying for too much of complexity, it was all for the love of real hip-hop,” says Squishy Stone.
One major advantage Killoshi Clan had was that they worked together last year for the competition and they knew one another’s strengths. “We already a team last year too we did take part but we didn't win. MayR is really good with his pen work and gives good ideas on how vocals need to be executed. Wolf Grey Jordan is good with his flow of the vocals and brings out different harmonies in the vocal element. E-dummy is amazing at producing his tracks and is really good at constructing a song with different elements of sounds to make it a perfect blend in the mix. I just do what my ear tells me to do, which helps to compose and produce the track to make it sound outstanding,” explains Squishy.
What went into making the winning track within the time frame? Squishy replies, “We had to do it quickly so E-dummy and I sat with the beat, made the outer skeleton, added a few elements and sent it over to the boys to write over it. Once, they wrote the beat, they also simultaneously modified to be better. After like 24 hours, the rappers (Wolf Grey Jordan and MayR) recorded the vocals, sent it over and we did post production. We submitted the song just two hours prior to the deadline.”
‘Aaj Ke Din’ is available on the IFP YouTube page and soon to be out on other platforms like Spotify and Amazon.